


Of The Feelings That Keep Running Inside of You

by slash4femme



Series: With Time [1]
Category: Numb3rs
Genre: AU for season 6, Amita leaves, Charlie regresses, Cuddling & Snuggling, F/M, M/M, a little discussion of depression
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-27
Updated: 2014-03-27
Packaged: 2018-01-17 05:46:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,517
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1376104
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/slash4femme/pseuds/slash4femme
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Charlie is falling to piece and Larry is trying to pick them up<strong></strong></p>
            </blockquote>





	Of The Feelings That Keep Running Inside of You

**Author's Note:**

> Originally written in October 2009
> 
> written for the prompt 'the first time' for the group [](http://community.livejournal.com/24_times/profile)[**24_times**](http://community.livejournal.com/24_times/) . All of the stories written for [](http://community.livejournal.com/24_times/profile)[**24_times**](http://community.livejournal.com/24_times/) will have titles taken from the song _Love's Lines, Angles and Rhyme_ s. I decided to give my lovely and talented regular beta a rest ::pats:: Beta'd by [](http://cardiac-logic.livejournal.com/profile)[](http://cardiac-logic.livejournal.com/)**cardiac_logic** this time around.

I.

The first time Charles Edward Eppes proposes marriage he makes sure everything’s perfect. The ring takes weeks to pick out, he thinks about what he’s going to say for months ahead of time. He agonizes over whether or not to actually go down on one knee, and in the end decides yes, yes he will. Sure, he hadn’t expected kidnapping to play a part, but when the moment comes, that exact moment, it’s as close to perfect as he can make it. They are in a beautiful garden, lit by moonlight, he does go down on one knee and he doesn’t screw up the words.

 

II.

Amita loves him. He knows she loves him, she tells him it over and over again, but she doesn’t say yes, either. 

She says, “I need time, Charlie, and I love you, you know I love you, but this is a big step.” 

He knows it is, he’s been agonizing over it for months, he knows it’s a big step, and he loves her, so he nods and tries to give her time, tries to ignore the fact that she didn’t say yes.

 

III.

The first fight is his fault; he’s tired, stressed, upset. He says things he’s not happy at himself for saying, unkind things that highlight the fact that his career has always come before hers, even in her own mind. She leaves in tears and he ends up flinging everything off his desk and sitting in the dark for an hour and a half. 

The next fight happens when she goes to a conference without telling him and gets delayed and ends up spending the night. He freaks out when she doesn’t come home, stays up all night worrying. Even when he sees she tried to call him, it’s still not good enough, because she hadn’t told him she was going and she wasn’t there and he hadn’t been able to find her when he’d gotten home. He can’t lose her; that’s what he tells her over and over again. He can’t lose her. She apologizes but he can’t let it go, because it had taken him a whole twenty-four hours to stop his hands from shaking, and they end up screaming at each other. She uses words like ‘constricting’ and ‘smothering’ to describe their relationship for the first time and he slams out of the house and ends up sleeping on Don’s couch.

The next time they fight it’s because she lost a publication offer helping him out on one of Don’s cases. He apologizes of course, offers to call the publishers and work it out, but that only makes things worse and she ends up yelling at him about how her career, her research, is always forfeit to whatever he happens to have taken an interest in. There is nothing he can say to that because they both know it’s true.

 

IV.

She gets offers, he knows she does: grant offers, collaborations, teaching jobs, places on teams and projects across the country and in other countries altogether. She’s young, talented and well thought of in her field. She’s not Charlie Eppes, but she’s still exceptional. 

Charlie’s always picked and chosen what he does based on what he feels like doing or what he’s interested in, while Amita has always turned down every offer that would take her away from CalSci, away from him. 

Charlie’s world is small because that’s what makes Charlie feel safe, feel comfortable, and Amita’s world is just as small because of Charlie.

As she publishes, the offers become more plentiful, better, and what CalSci can offer her begins to shrink. Charlie’s never leaving L.A., might not even ever move out of the same house he’s lived in all his life, and they both know it.

They are at a fund-raiser for the school when a very rich, very elderly gentleman remarks how romantic it is to see that Amita has sacrificed her career to get married and start a family and how so few young women these days would even consider such a thing. Charlie apologizes for the old man as soon as they are in the car, and Amita tells him it isn’t his fault, but she can’t even look at him for the rest of the night.

 

V. 

“Sometimes it just doesn’t work out.” 

She’s crying when she tells him that, not even trying to hide the tears running down her face, but she’s also made her decision.

She’s been offered a job working on classified, cutting edge computer software for the American government, and she’s moving to Washington D.C. to work at Quantico. They both know after Quantico she’ll have Harvard and Cornell fighting over her if she decides not to work in the private sector. It’s the right decision for her career, the one she should have made years ago, and he can’t find it in himself to fault her for making it now. 

He loves her, but with him she is always in his shadow, working on his research, his projects. He can also never give her the freedom she needs; he can’t do long distance, he can’t re-arrange his life even for someone he loves. He’s capable of inventing whole new ways of doing math, but he’s just not capable of that.

“This is for the best,” she tells him when she kisses him goodbye on the cheek. “You’ll see, it’s better for both of us this way.” 

He doesn’t believe her, but he lets her go anyway.

 

VI. 

Charlie, in Alan’s words, regresses. He only goes to CalSci and the house and refuses to go anywhere else. He refuses to have anything but the most basic interactions with students. He insists Alan tell Charlie about his every movement, even if he’s just going down the store for milk. He works on math constantly, in his office, at the house, mostly in the garage. Sometimes he goes for whole days without speaking to anyone, just working on the math. He works on Don’s cases for him, but refuses to go down the FBI office, refuses to see crimes scenes. Don comes over every Wednesday for dinner and the one time he has to miss it, Charlie locks himself in the garage and works on P vs. NP and it takes Larry four hours to coax him out into the backyard to visit the Koi pond. 

Larry spends more time in Charlie’s office and at Charlie’s house than he does anywhere else. He works on problems with Charlie at CalSci, keeps Millie away from Charlie, even acts as a buffer between Charlie and his more persistent advisees. He eats dinner with Charlie and Alan almost every night, and it’s pretty hit or miss whether or not Charlie will pull himself away from the math to eat at all. He misses so many meals Don threatens to physically force him to the dinner table if he doesn’t start making it a priority. Charlie does start eating more regularly after that, but even so he loses ten pounds in two months. 

Alan privately tells Larry Charlie hasn’t been this bad since his mother died, and Larry isn’t really surprised, although the fact does upset him. Alan also tells Larry that Charlie is better when Larry’s around, so Larry makes a point of being around Charlie pretty much twenty-four seven, not that anyone notices anything different about that. 

VII.

Charlie is bringing things and putting them in Larry’s office. Larry doesn’t stop him because on some level this is a form of human interaction, and even Larry had started to worry whether Charlie was even capable of that anymore. On the other hand, Larry had just finished cleaning out his office. He’d been down to one office chair, his desk, and his computer; everything else had gone. When he had advisees, he stood or paced while they sat in the chair. He feels he can think much better now, even if it does make the room feel a little too large and echo strangely. 

These days Charlie is fretful, and when Larry isn’t actually in Charlie’s office Charlie will come and find him in Larry’s own. Every time he does this, he brings something with him: paperclips, pencils, chalk from his own office. It all seems harmless enough, so Larry lets Charlie do it, lets Charlie pace around Larry’s office holding the items while he lectures about math at Larry. Then Larry lets Charlie leave the items in Larry’s office. Sometimes after Charlie leaves Larry stores them away in one of the now empty drawers in his desk. 

After a few weeks the items become bigger: a paperweight, a cup for the pencils, a little geometric model. Larry continues to pretend he doesn’t notice Charlie bringing them and then leaving them. Even if they are cluttering and complicating his life in exactly the way he’d cleaned his office trying to prevent. After all it was only fair, Larry thinks as he moves a small glass jar full of different colored paperclips to sit on top of his empty filing cabinet, Charlie complicates Larry’s life simply by existing. 

 

VII.

“Amita said I wasn’t whimsical.”They are sitting on the couch in the Eppes house staring at a wall of blackboards they carried up from the basement. Each blackboard is covered in equations, but they’ve hit a dead end.Larry is eating cookies and has been trying to get Charlie to eat some too, but Charlie’s been refusing in favor of covering his hands in chalk by absent-mindedly playing with a piece of it. Larry sits back against the couch and thinks about this statement for a moment. 

“I think in this particular case Amita was right,” he tells Charlie.

“You think I have no sense of whimsy?” Charlie asks, sounding a little hurt, and Larry sighs.

“I think you have no concept of fantasy, Charles.” He eats another cookie. “It is not in and of itself a bad thing, it is simply the way you are.” 

Charlie looks over at him for a moment. “You’re whimsical.” 

Larry brushes crumbs off his hands onto his jeans. “I am hardly you, Charles. You see and understand possibilities, but things are, to you, limited by the scientific laws and rules that we know of.” 

He reaches over and pats Charlie’s knee. “It’s not a bad thing, like I said earlier it is simply the way you are.” 

“Yeah.” Charlie looks back at the blackboards an almost lost look on his face “The way I am.” 

Larry suddenly has the almost overwhelming urge to hug the younger man, instead he reaches forward and grips Charlie’s chin firmly. Turning Charlie’s rather startled face towards him, “There is nothing wrong with the way you are,” he tells Charlie in a tone of voice he very rarely uses, the one no one ever argues with. “You are an extraordinary human being, Charles Eppes.” 

“An extraordinary human being who still lives with his father.” Larry resists the urge to smack Charlie lightly on the head.

“I will be the first to admit you have your quirks, but who among us does not.” Larry belatedly realizes he’s still gripping Charlie’s face and lets go of him, sitting back. “I am hardly one to fault you for eccentricities.”

Charlie stares at him for a long moment and Larry is tempted to ask what Charlie finds so interesting, since it can’t be Larry himself. Right when he’s about to, though, Charlie’s gaze slides to the chalkboards and Charlie goes rigid with that glazed look Larry knows means Charlie thought of something important. 

 

VIII.

Larry is in the Eppes’ kitchen making himself a sandwich. Charlie is sitting at the kitchen island working on his computer, not really interacting with Larry but keeping him within Charlie’s line of sight as Charlie is so want to do these days with all his people. Evidently Larry is now considered one of Charlie’s people, and he wonders if Charlie has always considered him so, or if this is a new attachment. 

“Maybe I should learn to cook.” 

Larry looks up slightly startled to see Charlie watching him. He belatedly realizes he should probably ask Charlie if wants a sandwich.

“Dad does it so well.” Charlie swings his legs, musing to himself, and Larry takes a bite of his own sandwich. “And while Dad’s living with me I’ve never seen the need.” Charlie stops swinging his legs and his face clouds over, probably at the thought of Alan leaving.Larry puts down his sandwich and touches Charlie lightly on the arm. 

“Charles.” Charlie looks up at him. Larry smiles down at him and after a long moment Charlie smiles back.

 

IX. 

Some days Charlie seems very much as he had been before Amita had left: happy, busy, animated, sure of himself and his abilities. Other days he is fretful; emotionally clingy around Don, Larry, and Alan; or overly distracted with details, math and work, unable or unwilling to come away from a problem for any reason. It’s hard for even people who have known Charlie his whole life, or just about that, to understand what makes Charlie’s moods change. It’s hard for any of them to predict when he’ll have good days and when something will tap into his insecurities and fears just enough to send him back to the garage and an endless row of chalkboards. Larry has taken to staying at the Eppes house, and at this point he’s one small bookcase worth of books from moved in to their solarium. Often when Charlie is in a fretful mood Larry can talk him out of it, whereas Alan is unable to talk math enough to communicate with Charlie, and Don doesn’t have the patience to try for longer than a few minutes. 

He’s sitting on the bed he’d set up in the solarium writing a lecture on wormholes when Charlie comes in and flops down on the bed next to him, staring up at the ceiling. “Do you think there is such a thing as an unsolvable problem?” 

“In math?” Larry looks over at Charlie, notes how thin he’s gotten, the dark circles under his eyes, but he sounds normal and he’s not holding himself like he’s something fragile that might break at any moment, so Larry thinks that is something. “Or in life?”

Charlie rolls over to look at him, and Larry becomes very conscious of how close they are on the bed. “Either. No, math I guess.” 

Larry smiles. “You do have a hard time telling those two things apart.” 

Charlie smiles back at him and Larry sets his computer aside. “I believe that there are problems that have not been solved and problems we do not at this moment in time have the ability to solve, but I am far from convinced that there is such a thing as a truly unsolvable problem.” 

Charlie is grinning now, “Spoken like a true theoretical scientist.” He reaches across the small space between them and pats Larry on the knee. Larry rolls his eyes and then briefly covers Charlie’s hand with his own before they both pull away. 

“Charles, I must finish this lecture by tomorrow,” Larry tells him earnestly. “If I don’t go in there at nine with something prepared, I will babble, and I shudder to think of what my end of the semester evaluations will look like if I do that.” 

Charlie laughs and sits up next to Larry on the edge of the bed. “Aw, but you know I love it when you babble.” 

Larry throws him a startled look, but Charlie is standing and heading for the door. “Good night, Larry.”

“Good night, Charles.” Larry watches Charlie leave and wonders where they are going here.

 

X.

Between his classes and looking after Charlie, Larry manages to miss four phone conversations with Megan in a row.

“I understand,” she tells him when he finally finishes apologizing. “I get it. It’s Charlie. It’s always been Charlie.”

He doesn’t have anything to say to that, because she’s right. 

“Did I hurt you?” It’s the only thing he can think of and he prays to beings he doesn’t really believe in that he hasn’t. 

“Well that depends.” He can hear her smile from over the phone. “You planning on never talking to me or seeing me again?”

He relaxes slightly. “No, I was planning on continuing to participate in interesting and enjoyable phone conversations with you and lunches from time to time when you visit the west coast.” 

She laughs at that. “Well then, you have nothing to worry about.”

“I’m glad.” He really is; Megan is one of the best people in his life, and he would have never forgiven himself if he’d hurt her. 

“You are sweet, Larry,” she tells him fondly. “Be happy.”

 

XI.

Charlie looks up when Larry pushes the garage door open. “Larry.”Larry merely looks at him. “Are you alright?” 

Charlie takes a step towards him and Larry smiles as if he finds something Charlie said amusing. Larry takes several quick steps forward and closes the distance between them and kisses Charlie hard on the lips. Charlie gasps, and then his arms are around Larry’s waist, his hands almost frantic, touching Larry’s hips, back, chest, stroking up and down Larry’s sides. Larry holds tight onto Charlie’s shoulders and breaks the kiss only when Charlie’s hands manage to find their way under Larry’s shirt to stroke across bare skin. They break away panting and stare at each other for a long moment, and then they’re kissing again. Both of Charlie’s hands are underneath Larry’s shirt, and Larry pushes Charlie back a little. Charlie removes his hand from Larry’s shirt long enough to push everything on the table onto the floor, and then Charlie is actually on the table. Larry is doing his best to try and unbutton Charlie’s shirt one-handed, while Charlie kisses up and down his neck. They kiss again, and Larry manages to get Charlie’s shirt open and runs both hands up and down through the dark hair on Charlie’s chest and Charlie makes a small noise into Larry’s mouth and pulls him close. They break for air again and Larry spares a moment to think about how they shouldn’t be doing this, and what a very bad idea this is, here in the garage where anyone, especially Alan could walk in, but at this point he’s beyond caring. Besides, the high needy noise Charlie makes when Larry undoes his belt and sinks to his knees on the hard floor is well worth the risk.

 

XII.

They are lying on their backs in the backyard contemplating the majesty of the heavens. At least Larry is, Charlie fidgets slightly beside him and Larry has the sneaking suspicion Charlie is contemplating something much more mathematically oriented and probably closer to home. He turns slightly and looks at Charlie, notices how much more healthy he looks, how he’s starting to put on weight again. He still sticks close to home, he’s still easily upset and insists Alan not move out despite Larry moving in, but he’s better now. He’s happy, or at least Larry hopes he is. 

“We should go shopping tomorrow,” Charlie tells him, and Larry nods. Charlie still won’t shop on his own, and Larry’s willing to risk being constantly mistaken for Charlie’s father just so he can maintain the peace. 

Charlie smiles at him, although his eyes tell Larry he’s not there but someplace inside Charlie’s head where only numbers exist and the world makes sense. Still, Larry smiles gently back at him and Charlie reaches forward and gently takes Larry’s face in his hand and kisses him softly. “We should go inside soon, go to bed.” 

Larry nods. “Yes, yes we should.” He reaches forward and traces one thumb across Charlie’s face against his cheek and the slight rasp of stubble there. “I love you. You know.”

Larry tells him softly. It’s not the first time he’s said it in the last six months, but every time, Charlie closes his eyes and leans into him likes he’s afraid Larry’s going to take it back any minute. Like all the other times, Larry only pulls him close and hopes Charlie will believe him one of these days. 

“Even though I’m different, and I can’t change, and I’m afraid of this?” Charlie asks not looking at him, instead looking at their hands linked together in the grass. 

“Because you are all those things, and very much more.” Larry puts his fingertips gently underneath Charlie’s chin and turns his face up so that he can see Charlie’s eyes. Charlie licks his lips and nods, but Larry knows Charlie doesn’t really believe him. Not yet, but one day Charlie will, and Larry’s willing to wait. He looks back up at the stars and then at Charlie and stands, holding out his hand to Charlie, pulling him up too. They have all the time they need for this because there is nowhere else Larry needs to be but here. 

 

 

 


End file.
